Tag Archives: United States

New development in Cassirer litigation in California

Posted on: July 17, 2015 by Alexander Herman

The dispute before the California courts between the Thyssen-Bornemisza Foundation and the descendants of Lily Cassirer Neubauer has now entered its second decade. Neubauer was forced to sell a painting by Pissarro before fleeing Germany in 1939 and her heirs now claim that it should be returned to them from the Spanish Foundation, the painting’s current possessor. The action brought […]

Kennewick Man is back: The pitfalls of modern science

Posted on: July 1, 2015 by Alexander Herman

An article published on 18 June 2015 in the scientific weekly Nature has given the world a new appreciation of the origins of the human remains known as ‘Kennewick Man’. The remains were discovered in the State of Washington in 1996 and preliminary studies showed that Kennewick Man was roughly 9,000 years old and had no noticeable morphological connection […]

Copyright calculator for EU

Posted on: April 23, 2015 by Alexander Herman

For those of you who have taken the IAL’s Diploma in Intellectual Property and Collections (DipIPC) course, you will know that an important module of the course deals with the duration of copyright. This can be an especially challenging issue when it comes to the visual arts, where digitisation can make a work instantaneously available throughout the world. But different […]

New ‘fair use’ guide for artists, art historians and art critics

Posted on: March 4, 2015 by Alexander Herman

For those intrigued, perplexed or in need of a practical guide on how to deal with that beast known as the ‘fair use’ exception in US copyright law, look no further. The College Art Association, the professional body of those who work in art, art history and art criticism in the United States, has just released its long […]

Magna Carta at 800

Posted on: February 9, 2015 by Alexander Herman

At the Institute of Art and Law, we often speak of ‘law as artefact’. This is a twist on the usual law of artefacts, which has been the centrepiece of the Institute’s courses and publications for over twenty years. Professor Norman Palmer, in his Institute lectures, often makes reference to the Cyrus Cylinder at the British Museum or […]

Rauschenberg Trustees await verdict on $60 million claim

Posted on: August 13, 2014 by Zehrah Hasan

Three Trustees of the Rauschenberg Revocable Trust await a decision in Florida as to whether they should receive $60 million for their “extraordinary services” to the estate of the late painter and graphic artist Robert Rauschenberg. Bennet Grutman, Rauschenberg’s accountant, Darryl Pottorf, his companion and will executor, and Bill Goldston, his publishing partner in a […]

Cornell University to forfeit ancient Iraqi tablets

Posted on: December 31, 2013 by Cristina del Rivero

The insinuations of wrongdoing are evident in the very first line of the Los Angeles Times’ article as reporter Jason Felch (presumably intentionally) refers to Cornell University “preparing to forfeit” to Iraq thousands of ancient cuneiform tablets. The clay blocks depicting scenes of daily life and the previously unknown high status of women in society […]

Bill to Introduce Artist’s Resale Right in the US

Posted on: November 29, 2013 by Ruth Redmond-Cooper

The introduction of a revised bill for the Equity for Visual Artists Act, which would introduce into US law the artist’s resale right (droit de suite) was announced at a meeting of the International Foundation for Art Research (IFAR) in New York on 25th November. The original bill, “to amend the copyright law to secure the […]